Spinal Tap trio going on tour

DETROIT -- Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer are leaving the costumes and wigs at home but will still play the music of their cinematic alter egos Spinal Tap, as well as the Folksmen from "A Mighty Wind" on a 30-date concert tour in the spring.

The six-week theater trek, dubbed Unwigged & Unplugged: An Evening with Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer, kicks off April 17 in Vancouver and runs through May 31 in Milwaukee. Tickets go on sale Friday.

"We've never gone out as ourselves," Shearer said Monday during a webcast teleconference at the House of Blues in Los Angeles. "It's interesting; after playing characters all these years, we're having meetings trying to figure out who WE are. ... We have to ask ourselves, 'What would WE do?' "

McKean, meanwhile, referred to outing as "a non-pony dog show," while Guest said the trio had started planning the tour "a couple years ago."

The shows' repertoire will be drawn from the two Spinal Tap albums -- "This is Spinal Tap" and "Break Like the Wind" -- as well as the soundtrack to the Guest-directed "A Mighty Wind." At the press conference Guest, McKean and Shearer played a short set that included Spinal Tap's "Hell Hole" and "Sex Farm" and "Old Joe's Place" from "A Mighty Wind."

The trio is also in the midst of recording a new Spinal Tap album that will be released May 26 and feature the "original studio versions" of the live songs on "This is Spinal Tap" and some new songs -- including the ironically titled "Short and Sweet," a 20-minute epic to which they're "adding stellar guitar player (guest) as we speak," according to McKean.

Some bonus material will likely be available for digital download only.

McKean said the partners are "trying to figure out a way to do (Spinal Tap's bass opus) 'Big Bottom' on three acoustic guitars" and said some incarnation of "Stonehenge" "is possible."

Tour information is available at www.unwigged.com, while www.spinaltap.com is also being reactivated.